Paul Schrader's 1998 film Affliction is equally bizarre and thought provoking, which is also true of his film Hardcore. Affliction tells a tale of two brothers plagued by their father's actions. Rolfe, the younger brother, turns his past into a positive experience by teaching him to be the "careful adult" he currently his as a school teacher. his brother wade on the other hand, follows in his father's alcohol dependent footsteps. Wade slowly loses everything that has meaning to him, including his sanity and anything that keeps him level-headed, and makes a gruesome decision to kill his father before going missing. While watching this film, I couldn't help but think Wade strongly related to Jerry in the pledge. These two men have a downward spiral while trying to do something good that turns a bit messy. At the beginning of Affliction, when Jill isn't enjoying her time with Wade at all, and even calls her mother to leave, I felt bad for Wade. That feeling didn't last too long. When Jill's mother and stepfather come to pick her up, and Wade takes a swing at the stepfather, I felt for Jill when she said "I still love you but I want to go home" and understood her melancholy and upset mood. Something has big as having his daughter in his life slowly turns into having little meaning to Wade as the film progresses, which is especially true when he's driving with Jill and cracks open a beer, and Jill confirms that this is illegal, and Wade continues drinking, not long before Jill leaves with Margie (who is also leaving Wade). It was difficult to feel sorry for wade in any way after he ruined his relationships with Jill and Margie, which are seemingly the only things left that have some realm of importance to him. In Josh Zeman's interview with Paul ScHrader for FILMMAKER Magazine, Schrader says, "I wanted the audience to root for him because you know from the first line that it's not going to work out for him. So how do you still care for him? The actor has to get you to care for him", and continues to talk about Nick Nolte's great acting as Wade. It was interesting to read that Schrader attempts to set up viewers in this way, because I myself temporarily got caught in this trap. In the article I mentioned above, Paul Schrader APPLAUDED Nick Nolte for his acting. While in hindsight I can agree with his comments, when I was watching the film in class I couldn't help but think of Nick Nolte's character Augusto in the sad but compelling film Lorenzo's Oil. If you've seen Lorenzo's oil, you'd know that Nick Nolte plays a foreign man WHOSE son develops a disease that has no cure, and he does all he can to learn about the disease to find a cure. Clearly, that character is a 360 degree opposite to Wade in Affliction. It was a bit funny to watch Wade's decline in comparison to the great things that happened in Nolte's other role. In David Konow and Jim Mercurio's interview with Paul Schrader for cretivescreenwriting.com, they ask Schrader, "As Nick Nolte’s character loses touch with reality, the demarcation between what’s real and what’s in his head begins to blur. How did you deal with this stylistically?" to which Schrader responds, "There were several levels of reality. There were his conspiracy theories, which were in black and white, and there were his memories, which were in a highly grainy color, but those were the only things technically." I hadn't really noticed this when I was watching the film, but I thought it was cool that Schrader used this technical element in conjunction with Nolte's acting skills to portray the past and present situations Wade was faced with. To conclude, let's talk about the family dynamic between Wade, Rolfe, and their father, glen. I couldn't help but congratulate Rolfe for "never (being) afflicted by that man's violence", because he's so composed and rational, two things Wade clearly lacks, and glen too. Watching wade turn into glen was faster than watching a tornado roll into a town, it was frightening and almost hard to watch. The biggest difference I noticed between the two is that Wade INITIALLY had good intentions, and from what we saw, it never appeared that Glen had good intentions for himself, anyone or anything. Glen drunkenly asked wade as a child, "What are you a quitter?" and I couldn't help but think that Glen himself was the quitter - he essentially gave up his role as a father and husband, and was left an empty shell full of booze and anger. Wade follows in his father's footsteps when he yells the exact same words at Jack not long before that relationship is tossed in the trash.
2 Comments
Dan Coconate
4/2/2017 09:05:36 pm
Nice response Caitlyn! I liked how you brought up the connection to The Pledge on how Jerry and Wade both essentially fell into this downward spiral as a character. Your other points on Wade as a character were very well done as well, good analysis!
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Paige Smith
4/3/2017 06:05:11 am
This response was well written! I thought the same idea in regards to "The Pledge" and the idea of the main character spiraling downhill by the end of the film. I enjoyed reading this!
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